Ah yes, the famous mental "heath" sector -- not to be confused with the more medically-recognized mental health sector. I suspect this person is trying to insinuate something about my personality, although I'm not quite sure what it is.

Tis a literary allusion, m'dear. They have detected (probably using the arcane tools of comparative literature, which are surprisingly similar to those things the dentist uses to remove tea-stains from one's teeth) the brooding, Heathcliffian depths that you usually keep so well hidden under your sunny, workaday, banjo-strumming scientist shtick.

(She said, wutheringly).

I'm off to spill something on my copy of the Reserve Bank Annual so I can check that it does, indeed, wipe clean.

Also, I did spot one significant way in which the Annual is unsuitable for children, with respect to historic annuals (Beano, Whizzer, Girls' Own, etc).

It does not come in hardcover, so is completely useless for the following purposes: hollowing out to hide sweets in; standing on to reach lolly jar; whacking sibling or dorm-mate with. And others I have not attempted recently.

is this the same Carl Crowley sponsored as Artist in Residence 2010 (maximum security) by The Reserve Bank? - I trust he liberated the Marshmallows in a Situationist jape...

Heathcliffian depths...

Unfortunately my 'Blasted Heath Cliff Notes' doesn't have a handy 'Bronté-saurus' at the end (moor's the pity), so much of Ellis Bell's gothic prose is a mystery to me - (though obviously "Thrushcross Grange" is a Yeats inflection)... Still it could have all ended much 'moor' happily if poor Heathcliff had been able to dry off by a Cath-heater!*

Unfortunately my 'Blasted Heath Cliff Notes' doesn't have a handy 'Bronté-saurus' at the end (moor's the pity), so much of Ellis Bell's gothic prose is a mystery to me - (though obviously "Thrushcross Grange" is a Yeats inflection)... Still it could have all ended much 'moor' happily if poor Heathcliff had been able to dry off by a Cath-heater!*

Listen. After Dr David dowsed it in whatever fluids and solids Bob-the-Toddler could discharge over a 24-hour period (with the aid of emetics I should add), they flicked a dishcloth over it and brought that shiny-faced sucker round to mine to be drenched in whatever more, ahm, adult forms of filth we could find lying around the place. Then we left it in the sun for a season and, wouldn't you know it? Clean as a whistle in the wake of merely a damp, warm rag.

If you're referring to the 'sticker' on the front of the book -- no, it's actually 'Comic Sans MS' the free font (it's not a clone, it's an emulation, check your legal dictionary).

I certainly agree that it's easy to overuse this font -- if that's what your comment is suggesting -- but there are times when it sends just the right message. This, I felt, was one of those times. If you look in any 50s or 60s Annual you'll see a similar font (particularly on the front 'sticker').

Apart from the sticker (oh, and the board game), the rest of the book is in 'Bookman' font, which is a very close match to the sort of 'story' fonts they used in annuals from the 30s to the 50s.

If you were to dig out "Our Boys' Yarns" (from the days when people could use apostrophes correctly) and "The Thunderbirds Annual", you'll find that the layout, fonts, drawings, etc. of the RBNZ Annual pays homage to elements of each (again, though, it's an emulation, not a clone).

EDIT: Accidentally dropped a bird from the above! Have corrected 'The Thunder Annual' to the 'Thunderbirds Annual'.

Oops! Yes, well-spotted, Ian -- accidentally dropped the 'birds' from the title! (Now corrected on original post). You read, you preview, you post, you read again, but somehow the mistakes still get through.

Since a heath is something flat, inhospitable and uncultivated that's been allowed to go to waste, I should have thought the Mental Heath Sector covered most of civilisation and the Antipodes.

This is a good point that I hadn't considered.

I fear that I have now offended a large and powerful international organization. God knows what their powers of evaluation/incarceration will be in New Zealand's largest and flattest province (where, alas, I happen to live). I shall have to flee for the Southern Alps.

I certainly agree that it's easy to overuse this font -- if that's what your comment is suggesting -- but there are times when it sends just the right message. This, I felt, was one of those times. If you look in any 50s or 60s Annual you'll see a similar font (particularly on the front 'sticker').

But it's using a font that wasn't available in the '50s or '60s. Oh, you think anachronistic font use isn't worth worrying about? Think again, sonny-jim.

I remember the days when a font was something you could wash a book cover in, provided it happened to be washable and at risk of blasphemy and damnation, rather than something on the book cover. Sometimes when I'm alone I find myself whispering the word "typeface" to myself in secret, illicit defiance.